mleisher@nmsu.edu (Mark Leisher) (12/09/90)
Archive-name: x11/chinese/cxterm/1990-12-08 Archive: cs.purdue.edu:/pub/ygz/cxterm.tar.Z [128.10.2.1] Original-posting-by: mleisher@nmsu.edu (Mark Leisher) Original-subject: Re: foreign languages Reposted-by: emv@ox.com (Edward Vielmetti) >In article <HARKCOM.90Dec7112905@potato.pa.Yokogawa.Co.jp> harkcom@potato.pa.Yokogawa.Co.jp (Alton Harkcom) writes: > > I have been playing with some of the clients in X11R4 for using > foreign languages. I have the source release. So far I have only > played with the Japanese clients, but I am studying Korean and > Farci and would like to be able to practice these on the computer. ^^^^^ Did you mean Farsi, spoken in Iran? > I also have an interest in Chinese (though I know almost nothing). > I have the new kterm (4.1.1) which lets me display Chinese, but I > don't have any software to input Chinese :-( > > What clients are available for input, output or display in > languages other than English? > There is a modified version of xterm called cxterm that supports three different styles of Chinese input(character by character basis) which is available from crl.nmsu.edu [128.123.1.14] in pub/chinese/cxterm.tar.Z and cs.purdue.edu [128.10.2.1] in pub/ygz/cxterm.tar.Z. I have modified the AsciiTextWidget to support Chinese input by Pinyin, but the input is still rather primitive. I'll be adapting it to be used as an FEP, like kinput. A notice will be posted here and other relevant groups when the initial version is ready to be used. Look for more sophisticated Chinese input support in X11R5(see below). A Public Review Draft of an Input Method Specification for X11, by Vania Joloboff of the Open Software Foundation and Bill McMahon of Hewlett Packard was released in November. This is available from expo.lcs.mit.edu [18.30.0.212] in directory pub/DOCS/i18n/. I believe the public review will be closed sometime in February 1991. The three logographic systems discussed explicitly in the specification document are Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, but the specification is by no means limited to these systems. I haven't had time to look through the specs carefully yet(guess what I'm going to be reading over the Winter Break), but a quick scan seemed to indicate a relatively comprehensive handling of input. > What fonts are available besides those in X11R4 and the ones > recently mentioned in this group? > Aside from the Chinese and Japanese fonts mentioned here, the only other X11 fonts I have personally tried to track down are Korean and Urdu(spoken in Pakistan) fonts. It's been quite some time since I tried to find Korean X11 fonts(there weren't any at the time), but I understand Korea just recently got an Internet connection(there's a mention of the network map and its carriers in soc.culture.korea, as well as an anonymous ftp site). Hopefully we'll see some useful Korean support for the X11 environment in the near future. No FREE and/or PD Urdu fonts were to be found. I am currently working with another student in an attempt to develop a Nastaliq word processor, but it will be some time before we resolve some of the font issues. My guess is that Arabic based fonts for X11 will be difficult to find. I am also working on some possibilities for Vietnamese, Thai, Tamil, and Devanagari fonts for X11, but these are unsure prospects. > Are there any servers like jserver(Wnn: Japanese Kanakan Henkan > Server) for Korean and Chinese? Are there any other > languages which require conversion? > I am told that the X11R5 distribution will have Wnn/cWnn included. cWnn is an automaton based conversion server, similar to Wnn, except it supports Chinese. I'm not sure, but I think some support for cWnn is being added to Nemacs. Those two are the only that I know of so far. > Are there any bilingual dictionaries? > > Are there any bilingual transaltion packages? > I haven't looked into this yet. It would be *REALLY* nice to find some FREE or PD on-line bilingual dictionaries. I know of a few translation packages, but they are, or will be commercial products. It would also be *REALLY* nice to find some of these that are FREE or PD. Finally, before I get lots of email asking about this, no, most of what I am doing is not project work, it's primarily a one person crusade to gather/create basic X11 tools for display, input and editing of as many writing systems as possible. Since this limits the time I can spend on it, any knowledge/code/fonts/etc. (FREE or PD of course) that people want to contribute would be accepted with *HEARTFELT APPRECIATION*!!! And profusive thanks to the people who have layed the foundations with softare already out there. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- mleisher@nmsu.edu "I laughed. Mark Leisher I cried. Computing Research Lab I fell down. New Mexico State University It changed my life." Las Cruces, NM - Rich [Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grille]